


darling, the marks you leave on me

by Coruscant



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Drowning, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Reunions, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27542626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coruscant/pseuds/Coruscant
Summary: The first time you touch your soulmate, brilliantly coloured lines appear on your skin, twisting into patterns. While you’re both alive, your soulmark will slowly grow over time, and when your soulmate dies the lines stop growing and turn black. Having a large soulmark is something to boast about, something to comment on, a sign of a lucky fate, of finding each other early and remaining together for years.If you’re immortal, this is…inconvenient.Or: the Andy/Quynh soulmate AU that wouldn't leave me alone
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, implied Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko/Lykon
Comments: 21
Kudos: 226





	darling, the marks you leave on me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with more Andy/Quynh angst for you all. One day I'm going to have to write an Andy/Quynh/Lykon fic, but that's not today.
> 
> I will admit that I fully just made up the mourning rites Andy and Quynh use, and please don't think too hard about history or the passage of time re: how much the soulmarks are meant to grow.

Andromache had never been overly concerned with soulmates. There were a few people she knew who had had the lines burst into colour on their skin, but it had never happened to her, and she knew far more people who had lived and died without ever finding their soulmate.

And then she died. Even millennia later, she would still remember that first death; a betrayal in battle, an axe to the back, the sudden sharp shock of pain, and the desperate, helpless fear. And then she woke up again, alone on the battlefield, just her and the dead.

The first time, she thought it was a fluke; that she had been stunned, not killed. But her injuries now healed with unbelievable quickness, and she took an sword to the skull, and an arrow in her back, and a spear through her chest, and each time she rose up again, unkillable. Slowly she accepted that death wasn’t going to take her.

Her people called her a goddess, and worshipped her, and she lead them into battle, from victory to victory, and as the years turned she watched and waited, but none of her people ever rose up again after being struck down, and the truth was as stark as the absence of a soulmark on her skin; she was alone.

It was the soulmarks that made her leave, in the end. There had been someone, she couldn’t remember who, their face and name lost to time. But she had loved them, as much as she could love someone mortal, until the day they came to her and showed her the brilliant red of the lines twisting across their skin, and she had known, somehow, that she would not find another like her by remaining.

So she left, and wandered across the continents – a desperate search to find someone else like her. But there wasn’t. She wandered and listened to tales of gods and demons, and probably caused a few more tales to be told in her wake, but she never found anyone else who could heal the way she could – someone who death never seemed to take. And it lingered on her mind, on cold nights, on lonely evenings, when she looked up at the stars and contemplated an entire existence alone.

And then the dreams came. It had been a day like any other – she was alone, had started a fire, and cooked herself a meal, and then laid down to sleep with her axe to hand. She couldn’t remember if she’d always been a light sleeper, but now she awoke at the slightest sound, reaching for her axe. She fell asleep easily, and she had dreamed. She often dreamt of people she had once known, but this dream was nothing like that.

She had seen a woman – an archer. She had been fighting. Andromache felt the knife that took her life as though it had stabbed into her own skin. And then the woman woke again; she rose up and reached for her blade; death had not taken her.

Andromache awoke gasping and terrified – as terrified by the dream as a child was of a nightmare. It hadn’t lasted long; just a glimpse. A glimpse of someone like her. And all she could do was stare at the burnt out ashes of her fire and think _she’s like me_ with a terrified sort of wonder. After all this time, after all these years, there was someone else like her, and the knowledge became a burning drive inside her; she _had_ to find this woman.

She knew she had to find this woman in her dreams – this one other person like her in the world – but that was easier said than done. She travelled vaguely east, and described the woman’s surroundings and weapons, and asked other travellers if they’d heard tales of a warrior that couldn’t die. Few of them had any answers for her, but the dreams kept coming, and Andromache couldn’t help but hope that maybe this was the woman she’d always been meant to find.

She lost track of the time it took to find her – tracked her days in the dreams she’d had, in the number of times the woman had died, the number of times she’d risen again – and wondered if she would ever find her, if the woman even existed, if this wasn’t just a figment of her imagination after so many years alone. The woman in her dreams was resolute and strong, a gifted archer and a terror in a fight. Andromache didn’t dream every night, and often found herself longing for another glimpse of this strange warrior when she slept.

It was almost a surprise to find her, as though she’d never expected to find a real person on the other side of her dreams. She crouched down next to her, reached out a hand, and gently touched her shoulder just as the woman shuddered back into life.

Andromache felt a stinging sensation in her hand and drew it back, startled, to see blue swirling lines across her fingertips. She met the woman’s eyes in shock, and looked down to see five blue spirals on the woman’s shoulder.

They stayed frozen for a moment in disbelief, and then Andromache reached out a hand and pulled the woman – the woman she’d dreamt of, the other immortal, her _soulmate_ – to her feet, and smiled. She wasn’t sure what this meant. But they would have an eternity to figure it out.

\--

Travelling with someone else after so many years alone was … an adjustment for Andromache.

The first issue they ran into was one of language. Andromache had pulled the woman to her feet and offered her water. The woman drank thankfully, and Andromache took a breath, her heart hammering, and said in the local tongue, “My name is Andromache.”

The woman stared at her in utter confusion, and Andromache had a sudden sinking feeling as she tried to remember the last time she’d been in this country. She tried another language – and then another. By the time she’d helped the woman from her dreams out of the desert, they’d managed to establish that they didn’t share a single language. Andromache resorted to tapping her chest and saying her name slowly, and managed to learn that the woman’s name was Quynh.

For the rest of their communications, they were reduced to miming, and as they travelled, they began to learn each other’s languages. Despite the time since she’d spoken it to anyone but herself, Andromache could still recall her native tongue, and that was the one she taught to Quynh. It was still the language she thought in, the language she reached for before all others, and it was something that few, if any, other people in the world still spoke.

As they became more able to speak to each other, Quynh questioned her incessantly about their abilities, about the dreams they’d shared, and what had caused them. All Andromache could say was, “I don’t know.”

About their soulmarks, neither of them spoke. What they shared was still felt too new, too fragile, to risk by broaching topics like destiny, and eternity. For an immortal, forever was a lot longer than it was for anyone else, so Andromache didn’t mention the way Quynh’s gaze would linger on her hand, and Quynh didn’t speak of the way Andromache would sit and stare at her mark for hours – this proof that she was no longer alone.

Andromache was not an easy person to travel with. She was arrogant, and unsociable – she knew this of herself, but she had never known it in quite the same way before. More than that, she was simply _unused_ to spending so much time in the company of another person. She was used to spending her days in silence; now she ran out of things to say to Quynh, and racked her memory for stories to relate when the silence between them grew too heavy. Her solitary habits – of making camp wherever she was when night fell, sleeping with her axe close to hand, travelling in silence – were suddenly subject to Quynh’s scrutiny and scathing commentary. And she had a lot of scathing commentary to make.

Quynh could also be proud and stubborn, and she too was not the easiest travelling companion. She argued with Andromache over where to make camp; she mocked Andromache’s skill in archery; she disliked horses; she thought fighting with an axe was ridiculous and pretentious; and when they passed through a town she insisted on staying, sometimes for weeks on end.

Andromache was used to stopping briefly in a town or village, bartering for what she needed, and then leaving again. Quynh wanted to spend time there, to “speak to someone other than you, Andromache”, to hear about wars or famines or whatever else had happened there recently. She insisted on _helping_ people.

In principle, Andromache had nothing against helping people, and even approved of it. But Quynh had a talent for causing trouble, and Andromache was helpless to resist her, and so found herself dragged into fight after fight. Part of her relished fighting with Quynh at her side; together, they were unmatched, and it was the kind of companionship she’d longed for during her long, lonely years. But another part of her shrieked with fear every time Quynh was struck down, the spectre of her loneliness returning to haunt her, and it made her short-tempered and irritable. She feared Quynh’s death like she feared little else.

It cumulated in an argument after a battle – Andromache had taken a fatal blow for Quynh during the fight, and Quynh fumed over it while they made camp.

“I am not a child,” she said in irritation, after Andromache had pointed out that she had far more experience in battle than Quynh. “I do not need you to protect me as though I am incapable of doing so myself!”

“I know you can protect yourself,” Andromache said, exasperated. “That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is your point?” Quynh demanded, “Why do you act so protective? Why do you insist on charging in first?” She jabbed a finger into Andromache’s chest. “Well?”

Andromache stared at her, wordless and annoyed; never before had she had someone be angry because she had _protected_ them. “Am I not your equal?” Quynh continued, voice rising. “Am I not capable? Can I not beat you in a fight?”

“Of course you are – we are equals,” Andromache responded. “You know that!”

“Then why do you insist on treating me like I am not?” Quynh asked, and Andromache realised it was _hurt_ in her eyes and felt her heart lurch.

“It’s not – I don’t think–” She tripped over her words in trying to explain herself. How could she explain to Quynh that she was unique? That Andromache had never found another like them? That Quynh’s laugh was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard? That she _had_ to protect Quynh because it would kill her to be left alone again? That every time Quynh was wounded she felt that terrible fear grip her again? “I don’t want to see you hurt,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush. “It kills me to see you die. I can’t bear it.”

“You don’t think it kills me to see you die?” Quynh demanded. “You think it doesn’t hurt me to see you in pain?”

Andromache stared at her. Oh. _Oh._

Quynh met her gaze, fury bleeding into something else. “Oh,” she said softly, “Andromache.” And then she reached out and grabbed a handful of Andromache’s shirt and pulled her forwards. Andromache went, stumbling, her hands reaching out to Quynh, and Quynh put a hand to her cheek and kissed her.

“I love you,” she said, when they broke apart. Her voice was wondering and amazed; all that time alone was almost worth it, for this.

Quynh laughed. “I love you as well, Andromache,” she said fondly, and pulled her in to kiss her again.

\--

By the time Andromache’s soulmark had reached her wrist, she realised they had a problem. It had been a four decades since she’d met Quynh at this point, and the slow steady growth of the swirling lines had already started to attract attention. Soulmarks as large as hers meant decades together, and neither she nor Quynh looked old enough to have spent as long together as they had.

“Perhaps you’ll have to wear gloves,” Quynh suggested as they sat around the fire, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“For eternity?” Andromache scoffed. She glared at the blue, green, gold lines swirling across her hand, and then glared at Quynh when she started laughing. “Give it a few centuries,” she said, “and you’ll have the same problem.”

Quynh frowned at her, and twisted to try and see her shoulder. “How big is mine now?” she asked, peeling back the shoulder of her shirt and glancing at Andromache.

Andromache shrugged and leaned over to her. “The same size as mine,” she said. “All the spirals have sort of joined up to form one big spiral.” She studied her hand, and then glanced back at Quynh. “It’s the same colours as well. The blue there with the green, and the gold there, and some pink and red here,” she said, slowly tracing the lines that were spreading across Quynh’s shoulder.

“If we live long enough,” Quynh said, “do you think they’ll match eventually? Mine reaching my hand and yours growing up your arm to your shoulder?” She reached for Andromache’s hand and took it in her own, tracing over the lines gently.

Andromache studied the swirling lines, and leant her shoulder against Quynh’s. “I hope so,” she said. “I hope so.”

They were silent for a moment and then Quynh said, “What if you just let it get really, really dirty?” and Andromache shoved her hard enough to knock her over. Quynh laughed, and pulled Andromache down to join her.

\--

In the years that followed, Andromache gave up trying to track time at all, and instead gauged the passage of the years by how much her soulmark had grown. By the time they found Lykon, it had already started growing down her forearm.

It was a constant source of irritation – every time they encountered strangers, or entered towns, she had to hide it, wrapping bandages around her hand and pretending she had an injury, and wearing long sleeved shirts. Quynh continued to find it funny, often teasing her about ridiculous ways she could try to hide it, with Lykon adding his own ludicrous suggestions.

(“What if you wear really long sleeves and pretend you’re missing a hand?”

“What if we say it’s a tattoo?”

“You could say wearing one glove is part of your religion?”

“I will stop speaking to both of you is what I’ll do!”)

One way that it proved useful though, was when they had met Lykon. Quynh had said, “We can’t die; we’re like you,” and he had said, “Prove it,” and Andromache had simply unwound the bandages around her hand and shown him her soulmark.

Part of her had almost expected to gain another mark when she first touched him, but he was meant for neither of them. He didn’t seem concerned about it, especially once she had told him how long she had been alone before she had found Quynh.

“If I am meant to find them, I will find them,” he had said one day, as they sat around the fire, “and I will count myself blessed if we have half as long together as you have had.”

Quynh had laughed, and told him that he should kick every new person he met so he didn’t end up with the same problem as Andromache, and they had never really spoken of it again.

\--

Travelling with Lykon was another adjustment, if a slightly easier one. Lykon was talkative in a way neither Quynh nor Andromache were, and could talk ceaselessly without hours if they let him. He laughed often, and was far more of an optimist than Andromache had ever been.

Unlike Quynh, he had no objections when Andromache charged into a fight ahead of him, remarking that, “It’s easier to pick off the stragglers when they’re running away,” and they soon developed a contest to see which of them could die the least, with the loser of each battle being left with the chores of setting up the camp. Quynh was the only one who typically fought with a long-range weapon, so she was excluded from the contest, much to her laughing protests.

Their campfires were surrounded by stories; as the eldest, Andromache had the most stories to tell though she rarely did. The one time she’d left Lykon speechless was when they’d been gazing at the stars and she’d pointed out the constellations that had changed since her childhood.

“To think that we will last so long,” he said eventually, “is beyond me. Is nothing unchanging?”

“We are,” Quynh replied, taking their hands.

“Are we?” Andromache asked quietly, looking up at the stars. “I am not the same person I was when I first died, nor am I the same person who rescued you, Quynh.” She lifted her hand, her soulmark looking strange and otherworldly in the firelight. “Even we change.”

“We change as people,” Quynh said, squeezing her hand, “but as a unit, we are unchanging.” She raised her hands, and kissed first Andromache’s knuckles, then Lykon’s. “The only thing that’s eternal is this. Is us.”

\--

It had been a battle like any other. That was what Andromache couldn’t stop thinking. It wasn’t that the blade had stabbed Lykon in a weak spot, or it had been on a specific day. And _she_ was the eldest of them – it couldn’t be that Lykon’s time had just run out. If they only had a certain amount of time allotted to them, she should have died centuries ago.

It made no sense. She couldn’t understand it.

The sun had set hours ago. Andromache was still kneeling next to Lykon. Quynh was sobbing next to her, clutching at his hands as though he would suddenly wake again.

Andromache’s hands had blood on them – Lykon’s blood, from where she’d pressed her hands to his wound. Her soulmark was smeared with red. She felt empty, like a slate wiped clean, like she’d been hollowed out, as though Lykon had taken everything of her with him into his –

She flinched away from the thought. _His grave_. They would have to bury him. Or burn his body. She didn’t know what funerary rites he wanted. They’d never spoken of it – they never thought they’d need to. They were supposed to be eternal, unchanging, the only constant in the world. It was supposed to be them, forever.

Lykon’s blood had dried hours ago. He was stiff and cold in death. None of them had ever taken this long to rise again, but Andromache and Quynh waited as the stars wheeled above them. They waited until dawn started to stain the sky, and still Lykon stayed cold and still.

Eventually, Andromache stirred. She said, “How long do we wait?” Her voice was hoarse and rasping, and sounded as though it was coming from a long distance away. Her mind felt numb.

Quynh looked up at her, tear tracks on her face, her eyes red and bloodshot. “It can’t be permanent,” she said, a hopeless sort of despair in her voice. “Why him? Why now?”

Andromache shook her head. “I don’t know.” Quynh had been the one to reach Lykon first – to see that he wasn’t healing. And she had screamed Andromache’s name, begged her to help, the same way she had once begged for answers about their inability to die. And both times, Andromache had been helpless.

Quynh pressed Lykon’s cold hands to her face and wailed. The sound cut through Andromache like a knife. She looked up and around, searching for Lykon’s spear. It lay a short distance away. Andromache struggled to her feet and walked towards it, picking it up and turning back to Quynh.

“We should build him a tomb.” Her voice still sounded distant. “He was a great warrior.”

Quynh straightened, and wiped at her face. She nodded. “Yes. He was.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, her voice trembling only slightly. “We will build him a tomb worthy of him.”

They had no building materials, so they built Lykon a cairn as large as they could, rising as tall as a person above the flat plains. They dressed him in his finest clothes, and wrapped him in the warmest cloak they owned between them. Andromache carried him there, cradled in her arms, and Quynh followed with his spear and shield and knifes. They laid him down with his spear in his hands and his shield at his feet, and all his possessions surrounding him. Quynh placed the jug of wine he’d bought at the last town they’d visited next to him, and Andromache swapped one of her knifes for one of his, so he would fight with her, even in death.

They raised the stone above him and Quynh, who could read and write a little, carved his name into a great flat stone they placed on top. Andromache committed the letters to memory; the only word she could read would be his name.

“He was a great warrior,” Andromache said. “And dearly loved. His name was Lykon. We will remember him forever.”

Quynh took her hand. “We will remember him forever.”

Andromache’s soulmark was past her elbow, and Quynh’s was spiralling down her upper arm, like a mis-matched set, and Andromache couldn’t help but wonder if they should have worried more about Lykon’s lack of a mark.

She gently let go of Quynh’s hand and drew Lykon’s knife. She gathered up her hair and then cut through it swiftly, leaving it falling in a ragged curtain to her chin. “As I cut my hair,” she said slowly, uncertainly, the memories faded and incomplete, “so my life is left by this loss.” The words didn’t sound right; she was sure there was something else she was supposed to say, but she swallowed tightly, and dropped her hair at the foot of Lykon’s grave.

Quynh looked at her, her eyes wet, and held out her hand. Andromache handed her the knife, and she swiftly cut her own hair. “As I cut my hair,” she repeated, “so my life is left by this loss.” She handed Lykon’s knife back to Andromache, and placed her own hair next to Andromache’s.

“May the memory of you never fade,” she said, her voice choked by tears. “You were the best of us, Lykon, and we are left incomplete without you.”

Andromache tipped her head back and screamed her grief at the sky.

\--

Their lives were quieter without Lykon. In the weeks following his death they retreated from villages and towns, riding across empty plains, just the two of them in sight. It felt like they were the only two people in the world.

Andromache slept uneasily. She was used to sleeping with Quynh in her arms and back-to-back with Lykon, each of them gripping a weapon. Now when she slept the space behind her felt cold and empty and she felt too vulnerable to sleep without Lykon there to guard her. She ended up sleeping with her back against rocks or trees, anything to stop that awful feeling of something missing.

And when she did sleep, she started having dreams where she would look down at her hands and her mark would be lifeless and black, where she had forgotten Quynh’s face, and Lykon’s name, and only had those black lines as a cruel reflection of their soulmark. She would wake from them crying and shaking, and curl herself around Quynh, knowing now that not even they could last forever. That their marks might never grow to the point where they matched. And she was terribly, horribly certain that it would be her left alone, at the end.

Quynh, too, struggled to sleep. She would turn to say something to Lykon, only to falter when he wasn’t there. There was no joking laughter to greet her in the morning, no teasing when she kissed Andromache, no racing contest over who could light the fire the fastest.

She took up drawing, bartering for paper and charcoal, and spent hours trying to capture Lykon’s smile, or his laughter, or his fierceness in battle.

A gaping hole had been torn in their lives, and they didn’t know how to fix it.

\--

It happened rather suddenly. They were still keeping to themselves, as they had since Lykon died, and they weren’t prepared for the attack that was launched against them. Bandits, Andromache supposed as she surged to her feet, labrys already in her hand; she might be unprepared, but she was still Andromache the Scythian, and these bandits were poorly armoured and equipped.

Between them, they had the bandits on the run in moments. But one had stayed back, and as they fled he let an arrow loose, and Quynh was unarmoured.

The arrow struck her in the chest and she dropped to the ground with the force of it. Andromache heard a hoarse scream and realised it was her. She dropped her axe and ran to Quynh’s side as she pulled the arrow free.

Quynh was choking – dying. Andromache reached for her, pressed her hand to Quynh’s wound, her mind consumed by howling fear. “Don’t leave me, Quynh,” she begged, “come back to me, my love.”

Quynh reached out and grasped her hand, and then choked on her last breath and died.

When she was younger, Andromache had prayed desperately to any gods she knew for another like her, or an end to her undying life, but never in her life had she prayed like this, nothing holy or sacred about it, just a desperate, vicious litany falling from her lips as she pressed her ear to Quynh’s chest, ready to give up anything if only Quynh would wake.

It couldn’t have been longer than a few heartbeats but to Andromache they felt like centuries.

Then Quynh’s eyes opened and she gasped for breath. Andromache gasped with her, clutching Quynh close to her, pressing Quynh’s head to her shoulder and holding her as close as she could. Her fingers sought out Quynh’s pulse and it was there, strong and steady. She gasped for breath again, tears springing to her eyes.

Since Lykon’s death she’d felt numb, isolated from the world, and now it was as though that armour had been ripped away. She hid her face in Quynh’s shoulder and sobbed, grieving for the love she had lost, and the love she would one day lose, and herself who would have to carry on without them.

Quynh was crying too, and they held each other tightly, the only two immortals in the world once again.

\--

“You have to let me go first,” Andromache said later. “In battle. I know we argued before, but please, let me take what deaths for you I can.” She was staring at her axe as she spoke, but then lifted her head and met Quynh’s eyes. “Please,” she repeated, “it would kill me to lose you.”

Neither blade nor arrow nor illness nor accident would take Andromache’s life, and the thought of living on, of surviving Quynh, and being alone again, was the one thing Andromache feared. Being alone for eternity – that was the only curse worse than immortality. When Andromache thought of the empty, lonely life she had lived before she met Quynh, she wondered how she had borne it. Losing Quynh wouldn’t take the life from her, but it would kill her just the same, taking everything that made her Andromache, and leaving a mere shell of a person to trudge onwards through the long, bitter years until her suffering was finally ended.

Quynh met her gaze steadily. After so long, Andromache didn’t have to explain herself; Quynh knew her as well as she knew herself. After a long moment, Quynh nodded.

\--

They woke from dreams of the siege of Jerusalem at the same time, gasping and reaching for their weapons as though it had been them cut down. “Two of them,” Quynh said quietly, wonderingly. Her hand reached up to touch her soulmark. “Two of them at the same time.”

“Two of them,” Andromache said, glancing down at her own mark, now reaching from her fingertips almost to her shoulder. A slow, fierce anger was growing in her gut as she thought of all her years alone. “ _At the same time._ ” Her hands clenched into fists and she waved away Quynh’s concerned look. “Did you see any marks?” she asked brusquely.

Quynh snorted. “I rather doubt it,” she said, and leaned forwards to wrap her arms around Andromache’s shoulders, “didn’t you notice they were on opposite sides? At least we never killed each other.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Andromache replied dryly, reaching over to kiss her. “We’ll start travelling tomorrow.”

Quynh smiled. “I’ll pack extra gloves.” Andromache didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply.

A week later, they woke from another dream the same way, gasping for breath, reaching for wounds that weren’t theirs.

“Did they kill each other again?” Andromache said, a hand pressed to her stomach where the Frank had been stabbed. “On the same battlefield?”

“I think so,” Quynh said, grimacing, rubbing at her throat. “If they killed each other the first time, and then both awoke and saw that the other had survived…” They exchanged glances, and Andromache let herself imagine, for a moment, if she had faced Quynh across a field of battle, and shivered.

Quynh grasped her hand. “You’d have been full of arrows before you’d managed to raise your labrys,” she teased, following Andromache’s thoughts with ease.

“Only until I snuck up on you with your bow unstrung,” she retorted, squeezing her hand tightly. She glanced down at her soulmark again – at Quynh’s, now past her elbow. “Maybe they’ll come to an accord,” she suggested doubtfully.

Quynh shook her head and pulled her back down onto their bedding. “We’ll end up mediating their disputes for the next hundred years,” she predicted darkly. “We’d better get some rest. And some gloves.”

Andromache sighed. “I can’t wait,” she said, “until your soulmark matches mine, and I can finally reuse all these jokes.”

Quynh only laughed. “On that day, my heart,” she promised, “the jokes will be yours for the rest of our lives.”

\--

Two weeks later, they were closer to Jerusalem, and the constant fight that the newest two immortals seemed to be embroiled in. Andromache’s anger – her envy – remained a slow, background simmer. She knew Quynh had noticed – after so long they could read each other with ease.

“It isn’t fair,” Quynh said quietly, one evening, after they’d woken from another set of dreams.

“No,” Andromache agreed hoarsely. “It isn’t.”

Quynh rolled over and rested her chin on Andromache’s shoulder. “I wish it had been me,” she said quietly. “That I had been alone. I would bear it for you, if I could.”

Andromache leaned forwards to kiss her. “I wouldn’t let you,” she said softly. “I’d rather it was me suffering than you.”

Quynh took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles – to the lines of her mark. “You will never be alone again,” she vowed. “I will never leave you.” Both of them knew it was a promise she couldn’t promise to keep, but Andromache didn’t argue, just turned and let Quynh wrap her in her arms. Whatever had been, whatever might be, in this moment, she wasn’t alone.

\--

Andromache watched tiredly as Nicolò and Yusuf started arguing again. They’d agreed on a truce once Andromache and Quynh had found them, but any subject of conversation would inevitably turn into an argument between them, and from there it was only a short distance to swords being drawn again. She’d told them about Lykon – how this wasn’t forever – but that hadn’t seemed to stop them.

They’d found out that they did both have marks – Nicolò’s on his foot, and Yusuf’s across his chest; the first time they’d fought, Nicolò had been on horseback and had kicked Yusuf – but both of them seemed to want to pretend that the marks didn’t exist, that this couldn’t be the person they were meant for. Andromache was just irritated that their marks would be easier to hide.

It had been almost a half a century since they’d found them, and she’d only spent a few months with Quynh in all that time. They’d tried to continue as they had before – finding fights, trying to fight for the right side, or even guarding caravans or travellers – but inevitably Yusuf and Nicolò would start arguing and get all of them killed. So they’d had to split up, agreeing to meet up again in a few years, and they’d tried to get them to sort themselves out, but every time they reunited, the arguments would start again.

“It took a month this time,” she said to Quynh, who was lying flat on her back, refusing to look at the fight starting in front of them. “That’s progress.”

“It’s not enough progress,” Quynh said flatly, and Andromache sighed in agreement, reaching down to clasp Quynh’s hand. She hated travelling without Quynh. She found it hard to sleep without Quynh at her side, and kept forgetting to guard her back in a fight, and when she woke from another dream about her mark turning black, Quynh wouldn’t be there to soothe her fears away. And the thought of Quynh having similar dreams, of her not being there for Quynh, of Quynh dying and returning without her at her side, was enough to make her snappish and irritable and only made her miss her more.

It was like missing a limb – worse, even, because their limbs would grow back, but Quynh’s absence couldn’t be put right.

“Maybe we should just let them kill each other,” she said tiredly, “until they get tired of it.”

“They won’t,” Quynh replied.

“Well I’m tired of it,” she retorted. “They’re just…they’re being such children about it!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Quynh snapped, sitting up. “You think I’m not just as tired, Andromache? You think I sleep any better without you than you do?”

Andromache sighed, and rubbed her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you do. I just–” She gestured helplessly. “I just miss you.”

Quynh sighed and leant against her. “I miss you as well,” she said miserably, and Andromache instinctively curled her arm around her.

They both groaned at the sound of swords clashing together in the distance. “It’s your turn to stop them,” Andromache said, burying her face in Quynh’s hair.

“That’s a blatant lie,” Quynh retorted, unmoving. “I’ve stopped them the last three times.”

“Let’s just leave them,” Andromache said. “They’ll stop when one of them dies.”

Quynh raised her head. “Why don’t we leave them?” she asked. “Why don’t we take a few days for ourselves and just leave them to kill each other?”

Andromache frowned. “Here?” she said. “Do either of them speak the language?”

Quynh shrugged. “Does it matter? They’ll be killing each other, not speaking to the locals.”

Andromache snorted. “I suppose that’s true,” she said hesitantly. She glanced over at the two men, still furiously fighting. They’d abandoned swords now and were rolling around wrestling. “But if something happened to them–” she began.

Quynh leant forwards and kissed her, her hands tangling in Andromache’s hair. “Andromache,” she said when they broke apart to breathe, “I’ve _missed_ you. I can’t sleep without you. I worry something will happen to you. I’ve not spent the night with you in years.”

Andromache leant her forehead against Quynh’s. “You make a good argument,” she said, smiling. “We’ll take a week or two for ourselves.”

(They returned three months later, and found out that Yusuf and Nicolò had managed to come to an accord in their absence; “We should have done this years ago,” Quynh said, laughing, watching Nicolò blush as Yusuf practiced drills with his scimitar shirtless.

Centuries later, Joe would fling an arm around Nile’s shoulders and say, “At least we didn’t abandon you in China,” raising his voice towards Andy. “For three months! Without food or money or transport!”

“One of these days you’re going to have to let that go,” Andy retorted over her shoulder.)

\--

Andromache ducked her head into the river, trying to wash the last of the blood out of her hair. “Quynh,” she called, surfacing, “can you pass the soap?”

Quynh, a short distance away, was furiously scrubbing at her favourite shirt. “No,” she said scowling.

Andromache sighed. “Yusuf,” she called, turning, “do you have any spare soap?”

Yusuf was sat around the fire with Nicolò and turned at her voice. “Of course,” he said brightly, and started rummaging in his pack. A few moments later he stood and trotted towards her. Andromache pulled herself out of the river to take it from him and he stopped dead, staring.

“What?” Andromache asked, irritated. “If you’re embarrassed, stop looking; that’s your problem.”

“What? No.” Yusuf shook his head. “Your soulmark.” He pointed. By the fire, Nicolò was looking up as well.

Andromache snatched the soap out of his hands. “We are immortal, Yusuf,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he said weakly, his hand going to his own soulmark. “But–” He shook his head, eyes wide. “You’ve been together for so long,” he said finally, falteringly.

“Millennia,” Quynh said softly. Her eyes landed on Andromache. “Just you and me.”

Andromache smiled back at her. “Until the end,” she agreed. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some blood to get out of my hair.”

\--

Andromache looked at Quynh as Nicolò and Yusuf disappeared into the woods. “They’re not going to be back with firewood by supper, are they?” she asked.

Quynh rolled her eyes. “We’ll be lucky if they’re back by dawn,” she retorted.

Andromache sighed. “I think I preferred it when they were killing each other,” she said. Quynh laughed. Andromache reluctantly laughed as well, and heaved herself to her feet. “Shall I get firewood, then?” she asked.

Quynh reached out and tugged her back down. “They’re not going to be back until dawn,” she said. “And they’re not the only ones who’ve missed having some privacy.”

Andromache laughed, and kissed her.

\--

“I’ve never been burnt alive before,” Quynh said to Andromache. They were leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder in the dark cell. “What do you think it feels like?”

“Excruciating,” Andromache said dryly. She turned to look at Quynh and smiled, nudging her with her shoulder. She wanted to say, _they won’t be able to kill us._ She wanted to say, _Nicol_ ò _and Yusuf will get here in time._ She wanted to say, _we’ll get out of this, we’ve been in worse situations, do you remember that time in Egypt?_

“Just you and me,” Quynh said, leaning against her.

“Until the end,” Andromache agreed, and leant forwards to kiss her.

Andromache’s soulmark was just curling over her shoulder – it was what had got them caught, in the end, Andromache being caught without gloves at the wrong moment. The judges hadn’t needed any other proof to pronounce them witches. Quynh had laughed, and told her it was bound to happen eventually; hers was wrapping around her wrist, just curling onto her palm.

“Until the end,” Andromache repeated.

\--

In the years that followed, Andromache developed a habit. Every morning, the first thing she did was look at her left hand, and the brilliant lines and colours that made her soulmark. Every morning, she wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be black or not. And every morning, it was the same. The same colours that had been there ever since that day thousands of years ago when she’d found Quynh in the desert. She could never decide if the lurch in her stomach was disappointment or hope.

The first time Nicolò had made a joke about gloves after Quynh’s loss, Andromache had nearly stabbed him. She wore gloves almost all of the time now, unwilling to look at the proof of her loss.

When they had first found Sébastien, and she’d taken off her gloves, he’d said, “She’s yours, isn’t she? The woman in the coffin?” and had nodded at her mark. She hadn’t been able to reply.

They’d searched. They’d looked, until the danger of losing another of them to the sea had become too real to ignore. And Andromache had kept up with the inventions, had stolen a diving bell, had tried to steal ships and gotten arrested, and had broken into military bases for their equipment. But they hadn’t found her, and they’d been apart long enough for her soulmark to start curling across her back and chest. And for Quynh’s to grow far enough down her hand that Sébastien had been able to see it in his dreams.

“It was my fault,” she said to him, years later, when both of them were drunk. “They saw it.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “They thought we were witches. If I had worn my gloves, she would still be here.”

He looked at her, and raised his glass to clink it against hers. “My wife,” he said unsteadily, “I was her soulmate. But she wasn’t mine. She had the– “ He gestured in the air, drawing patterns with his fingers. “But I didn’t. I guess I know why now.” He looked down at his glass, and then threw it back, Andromache following suit.

“Does she dream of you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t think she has time to sleep in between drowning,” he said, and Andromache closed her eyes and clutched at Quynh’s necklace and cursed the lines twisting across her skin.

\--

The first time they had stopped searching, nearly a hundred years after Quynh’s loss, Andromache had stood on the deck of their ship, watching as the harbour got closer and closer. She reached for Lykon’s knife that she carried even now, gathered her hair up in one hand, and cut through it with one swift strike. She let it fall into the sea. “As I cut my hair,” she said quietly, in the language that only she spoke anymore, “so my life is left by this loss.”

\--

Nile was young and new and full of hope and it burned at Andy. Booker had been a father and a deserter when they had found him, and Nicky and Joe had been fighting in an ugly war, and Nile had seen and experienced violence, but she wasn’t cynical or jaded, and Andy didn’t know how to tell her about the pain that an eternity would bring.

She kept her gloves and jacket on while she was bringing Nile in, despite the heat, and kept in the corner when they were eating. She didn’t feel like answering questions about her mark.

Of course, it turned out that she didn’t have to.

 _“I dreamt of a woman in an iron coffin beneath the sea…”_ It wasn’t like she hadn’t known Quynh was alive – her soulmark was still brightly coloured, still growing across her back – but hearing Nile say it was something else. _“She had a soulmark stretching across her hand…”_ Booker had never spoken of the dreams after that once, and Andy had tucked her pain and her guilt back into her heart, but hearing Nile say it, seeing the looks on Joe and Nicky’s faces, was more than she could bear.

She was almost relieved when Nile decided not to try and rescue Nicky and Joe with her and Booker. Nile felt so young; Andy couldn’t even remember what being that young was like. She still had hope. Andy’s hope was drowning under the sea; Andy’s hope had died with every dive, with every time she set sail, every new piece of technology that had turned out to be more useless than the last. She was almost glad that she wouldn’t have to see Nile’s hope die.

\--

Briefly, after the pharmacist had ushered her into the backroom, Andy thought about her mark. Her wound was on the other shoulder, but it had spread across her chest and back by now, and she worried that surely the woman would see it. She tried to arrange her shirt so it was hidden, but she wasn’t very successful, and she saw her glance at it and then back to her work.

“You haven’t asked,” she said, and the woman looked up to meet her eyes.

“Your business is yours,” she said, and Andy tried not to shift under her gaze, tried not to feel vulnerable in her fragile, mortal skin. “You need help. What does it matter why? Today, I put this on your wound. Tomorrow, you help someone up when they fall.” Andy looked away from her, away from that steady, optimistic hope - that unflinching, unconditional kindness - and felt humble and small. “We’re not meant to be alone.”

 _No,_ Andy thought, _no we’re not._ She looked down at her hand, covered in swirling lines, and missed Quynh with a sudden, aching pain that she hadn’t felt in decades.

\--

When Booker shot her, Andy’s one thought was, _will she know? Can she see her mark down there in the depths? Will she see it turn black? Will she know?_ They were hurried through the facility into the labs where Nicky and Joe were tied down, and Andy was relieved to see that they were together. _At least they will never be separated,_ she thought, _they’ll never have to be alone._

Joe’s soulmark covered his stomach and chest now, rising up around his collarbones, and she heard the doctor comment on it, heard Joe and Booker arguing, but all that was in her head was Quynh.

“What about you?” she looked up, and met the woman’s eyes, the smirk on her face. “Nothing to say? Not going to dare me to ‘do my worst’?”

Andy laughed, a humourless, bitter laugh. The sort of laugh you give just before the noose slips over your neck; the sort of laugh you have to choke down when someone says _worse things happen at sea_ and you know exactly what those things are. The sort of laugh that happens when you’ve walked the earth for six thousand years and every time you turn around there’s some new despot or dictator who clearly thinks that they and they alone are new and innovative and dreaming up never-before-seen levels of cruelty.

“The worst has already happened to me,” she said hoarsely, “and I am living in its aftermath.”

\--

The first sight of Quynh had stolen the breath from Andy’s lungs. She’d dropped her labrys. Quynh was standing in front of her, alive, out of the water, breathing, furious. Nicky and Joe were shouting something, Booker was shouting back, none of it mattered.

“You’re here,” Andy said, in a language that only one other living person still spoke. “How – how are you here?” The air was burning in her lungs, she could feel every beat of her heart in her chest, and her mind felt empty, empty of any thought except _Quynhquynhquynhquynh._

“Iron rusts, Andromache,” Quynh replied, and Andy hadn’t heard her voice for five hundred years. Her knees felt weak. She felt dizzy, lightheaded, like she’d been poisoned, or gone too long without sleep. “The coffin broke before I did.” Andy looked at her, couldn’t do anything but look at her, at this person that she knew better than anyone else in the world, and her heart was beating out of her chest and sorrow was strangling her because _Quynh had fought her way out._ She’d had to break herself out of the worst prison in the world because Andy _hadn’t been there_ , Quynh had needed her and _she hadn’t been there_ and she didn’t know how she could ever possibly be forgiven. But Quynh was standing there alive, and that was worth anything.

Quynh had a sword, and she spun it in her hand – her right hand, now covered in her soulmark the same way Andy’s was. Andy’s heart lurched and skipped a beat. “You cut your hair,” Quynh noted, and for a second Andy was so taken aback she couldn’t respond. And then guilt rose up like bile in her throat and spilled from her mouth.

“I didn’t find you,” she said. “I tried to find you. I failed you. I’m sorry.” She said it like the useless, inadequate word it was. She said it like it was everything. She tried to pack five hundred years of grief and guilt into one word, tried to say to Quynh everything she had wanted to tell her since they had been parted.

“Is sorry worth five hundred years?” Quynh asked.

“What else is there?” Andy asked. “I tried to find you and I failed. I never stopped looking.” She felt as though her heart was burning a hole in her chest, and Quynh was just standing there, and Andy ached to reach out to her, to touch her, ached like every bone in her body was broken, every nerve on fire.

Quynh’s face twisted in anger and she struck, faster than Andy could stop or react to. Joe shouted from the distance, but Andy didn’t move. She stayed stock still as Quynh’s sword cut through the air and buried itself in the wall inches from her throat.

For a second, Andy wondered if Quynh knew about her mortality somehow, and then if Quynh’s aim was slipping after all those years underwater, but then she saw Quynh’s expression change, a mix of fury and grief, and knew that Booker had told her.

Quynh let go of her sword and turned away. Nile, who’d healed faster than Joe or Nicky, was on her feet, gun in hand, and looked at Andy uncertainly. Andy waved her away as Quynh dropped to her knees and screamed.

The sound tore at Andy. It cut through her like a knife; like an echo; like a memory. She knelt down next to Quynh. “If I could die for what I have done, I would, my heart,” she said.

Quynh didn’t look at her, just beat her fists against the floor and keened.

“I love you,” Andy said, heartbroken and helpless. “I missed you. I would have exchanged places with you if I could.”

Quynh drew in a deep, ragged breath, and looked up at her. “Would you?” she said, and Andy couldn’t read her tone. Her gaze tore through Andy, laid her bare.

“In a heartbeat,” Andy said instantly, her voice catching. “Without a second thought. I would spend twice as long down there if it meant you didn’t have to.”

Quynh's eyes were wet and bloodshot. “I wouldn’t have let you,” she said, in a voice made hoarse by hundreds of years of drowning.

Her hand rose to Andy’s face, and Andy could see the lines of her soulmark – their soulmark – twisting across her skin. “Do we match yet?” she asked, and she reached for Andy’s hand, lifted it up in her own and turned her hand until their hands were side by side, and it looked as if they’d been painted by the same brush, the same artist, the lines and colours sweeping across their palms, and Andy felt something twist inside her at the realisation that yes, their marks matched.

“It was my fault,” Andy said. Her hand in Quynh’s was her only tether to the earth. She looked at Quynh’s eyes. “It was my fault,” she repeated, and the truth burned her tongue. If she had been more careful – if she had been faster – if she had _done_ something rather than let them take Quynh away from her – but she hadn’t. She _hadn’t._

They stayed silent, and Quynh studied her face, and then she abruptly reached up and traced her fingers down Andy’s cheek, wiping away tears Andy hadn’t even known she was crying. Her hand traced down Andy’s jaw, her neck, landing on the necklace she’d given to her so long ago. “I’ll leave if you want me to,” Andy said, “be in exile, like Booker–”

“ _No.”_ Quynh put a hand over her mouth, her voice hard and fierce. “Don’t you _dare._ You’ll stay by my side for the _rest of your life,_ Andromache, _do you hear me_?” Her hand was gripping Andy’s tightly, as though she was going to leave that moment.

Andy took a shaky breath. “I hear you, Quynh,” she said, “I don’t want to leave you.”

"It's not fair," Quynh said, her voice choked. "After all this time, Andromache, you can't leave me."

Andy's eyes blurred with tears. "No," she said, hearing her voice like an echo of words said a millennia ago, "it's not."

Quynh’s grip relaxed slightly, and her eyes searched Andy’s face for a long moment, and then she leant forwards to kiss her.

Andy had promised herself, when Quynh was taken, when she realised how long it would be before they could get her back, that she wouldn’t forget her. That she wouldn’t forget her voice, or her face, or the hundreds of moments they’d spent side by side. She realised now that she’d broken that promise to herself a hundred times. She’d forgotten the press of Quynh’s lips against hers, she’d forgotten how it felt to have Quynh’s hands in her hair, her hands at the back of Quynh’s neck, her waist. She’d forgotten what it was like to break apart from a kiss to breathe and lean her forehead against Quynh’s and know what it was to have someone she’d spent so long with by her side.

“Did you think I would forsake you?” Quynh asked. She ran her hands through Andy’s hair, and cradled Andy’s face in her palms. “Did you think I would let you leave me when I’ve already spent so long away from your side? You were all I had down there, Andromache. Just the darkness, and death, and the knowledge that one day I would see you again.” She held up their joint hands. “I knew you were alive,” she repeated. “I knew you were with me. Every dawn there would be enough light for me to see my mark, and I knew you were alive.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Andy said, her voice choked. “You were drowning, Quynh, I let you drown. You needed me.” Her voice rose to a keen of grief. “You needed me and I wasn’t there.” Her eyes were burning with tears.

“You were there,” Quynh said firmly, and their marks glittered and shone between them. “And you’re here now. Five hundred years, you owe me. Five hundred years to spend by your side, and I’m not letting your guilt separate us.”

Andy couldn’t speak. She thought of the bullet wound in her side, the knife in her shoulder, the burn two weeks ago that still hadn’t healed. She gripped Quynh’s coat as tightly as she could and closed her eyes. “If it’s mine to spend with you, you’ll have it,” she whispered. “I’d give you all my years if I could.”

Quynh wrapped her arms around her and pressed her face against Andy’s shoulder, and Andy buried her face in Quynh’s hair and took her first breath in five hundred years.

\--

Andy woke up with a start, and automatically reached across the bed for Quynh, the last lingering traces of her dream still twisting around her. Her hand hit empty sheets, and suddenly her heart was in her mouth. She sat up. From the faint moonlight she could see what she already knew – Quynh wasn’t there.

The habit of centuries had her glancing down at her hand – her soulmark was still there, still brightly coloured. And, really, Quynh probably hadn’t gone far, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t look after herself. But Andy had woken up reaching for Quynh thousands of times, only to find her missing and have her world shatter anew, and her heart was now hammering in her chest and she needed to know where Quynh was.

She rose to her feet and paced silently through their latest safe house. She checked the rooms one by one, and then spotted Quynh outside. The tension eased from her shoulders and she turned to make some tea instead, now slightly embarrassed about her immediate, frantic descent into panic. Still, she couldn’t help but glance at Quynh every so often, to make sure she was still there.

This, it turned out was a mistake – while Andy could probably juggle knives blindfolded, modern appliances could somehow still catch her out, and she thoughtlessly put her hand down straight on the very hot, metal kettle.

“Fucking shit,” she hissed, snatching her hand back and inspecting it. It wasn’t a bad burn, but it was definitely noticeable, and she sighed as she moved to the sink and turned the tap on. She did not want another “you _must_ take care of yourself” lecture, and now they’d all be lining up to give her one. She glanced at Quynh again, and then back at her hand –

She slowly turned off the tap, and then inspected her hand. Where there had been an angry red burn, now her skin was normal and unhurt. She had _healed._ She stared at it in disbelief, and then reached for a knife, making a slight cut on her finger and watched, incredulous, as the wound healed.

She tried three more times before she was willing to accept that immortality was once again hers. She out the knife back, made the tea, and went outside.

Her head was buzzing. How would she tell Quynh? The news of her mortality had hit her love hard, and now she was kicking herself for not waiting a little longer to tell her. She felt giddy, happiness bubbling up in her chest. Her immortality might desert her again later, but for now she and Quynh had all the time in the world.

She dropped down next to Quynh, and handed her the tea. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked softly.

Quynh shook her head and took a sip of tea. “I’d forgotten what the stars looked like,” she replied, leaning her head on Andy’s shoulder, and for a moment Andy was so angry she couldn’t breathe.

“We were going to count them once,” she said, brushing a strand of Quynh’s hair out of her eyes. “Do you remember?”

Quynh hummed and smiled at her. “You seem happy,” she noted.

“Of course I’m happy,” Andy replied. “I’m with you.” She bent her head to kiss Quynh, putting her tea aside. She’d only meant it to be a brief kiss and then segue into her immortality returning, but Quynh slid a hand into her hair and climbed into her lap and kissed her until she had to pull away panting.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, resting her forehead against Quynh’s.

Quynh pouted and kissed her neck. “Can’t it wait?” she asked, her hands sliding under Andy’s shirt.

Andy hesitated for a few seconds, but her immortality wasn’t going to vanish in the next few hours, was it? “Of course,” she answered, “it’s not as important as you,” and bent to kiss Quynh again.

\--

(The next morning, Andy will wake up with Quynh sprawled across her, and she’ll wake her with a kiss, and say, “My immortality’s come back,” and Quynh will stare at her in disbelief and then pull her to her feet and make her prove it, and then she’ll kiss her again and again.

“We should go back to Greece,” she’ll say, “or Egypt. Now that we have time. We can travel the whole world again, Andromache!”

“We can go anywhere,” Andy will reply, laughing, “as long as we pack gloves.”)

**Author's Note:**

> Is it unrealistic that Quynh could see her soulmark underwater? Probably, but it's too good not to use. Do I think Andy's immortality will return in canon? No. Is there a long, angst-ridden fic that I'm going to write about that one day? Yes, but today is for self-indulgent wish-fulfilment.


End file.
